


Touch Confessions

by apollojusticeforall



Series: Tactile [6]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, communication misunderstandings, the intimacy of touch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27525265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollojusticeforall/pseuds/apollojusticeforall
Summary: Jim had always been good with his tongue.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Series: Tactile [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1812097
Comments: 9
Kudos: 130





	Touch Confessions

Jim had always been good with his tongue.

When he was a kid, he was never one for sports, but he loved debate club. He enjoyed the research, constructing the perfect augment, presenting his points (with appropriate flair), combatting his opponent’s counterpoints, and, of course, he liked winning. He used to test out his strategies on his brother, and although their fights were never actually serious, it was Sam who first taught him that sometimes if you couldn’t win with your words, make sure you could win with your fists.

His knack for charming his way out of trouble had helped him well into his adult life. He wasn’t shy about public speaking, and the xenodiplomacy courses at the academy were always some of his favorites. He was even elected student speaker for his graduating class. He’d flown through the interview portion of every promotion he’d ever received, due to both his well-structured list of recent accomplishments and appropriate verbal displays of enthusiasm for Starfleet.

Throughout his career, he’d found that most times he could solve disputes just by negotiating, whether that be between foreign dignitaries or squabbles involving his crewmembers. He always knew what to say to ensure each party came out with an acceptable agreement, or at least what they thought was an acceptable agreement. 

He’d once had an admiral tell him that if he hadn’t been so set on becoming a starship captain, he should have gone into intelligence-gathering because of his talent for inveigling information out of people. It had something to do with the combination of his open, trustworthy aura and asking the right questions. He had accumulated quite the stash of secrets he could use at his disposal, but he resisted deploying this arsenal. After all, he had other methods for getting what he wanted. 

His reputation as a smooth-talker didn’t only come from his diplomacy track record. He liked to think of himself as a romantic, and he usually didn’t have much difficulty in wooing whoever peaked his interest. The right words paired with a charming smile usually did the trick—how long the other person stuck around after the night was over usually depended on factors outside his control.

The point was, he always knew what to say. If his first argument didn’t work, he always had a counterpoint or an additional piece of evidence, his mind already three or four lines ahead in the conversation. He had convinced warring races to attempt peace for the first time in milena, outsmarted computers through their own logic systems, talked his way into the captain’s chair, and built a good handful of lifelong friendships on late night conversations and inside jokes. Both his friends and his crew relied on him for the right thing to say at the right moment.

That said, Jim was ordinarily never at a loss for words.

* * *

Jim had tried to bring up his feelings to Spock a few times, but so far had never been successful. 

Not for lack of opportunities. He and Spock saw each other often enough, both on duty and off. Jim once tried to broach the topic over their biweekly chess game, but something about the timing felt off. He had planned for this to be the perfect way to explain to Spock the depth of what he felt for him, how he was hoping for  _ more _ from their relationship, but then he looked at his friend on the other side of the board, how he seemed most relaxed when it was just the two of them, Spock’s face open and unguarded, letting slip every quirk of his brow and every easy smile, even if still a bit tight-lipped. Jim had cracked a joke and Spock laughed quietly, and Jim’s heart swelled as if it were filled with helium. But then he thought of accidentally destroying this easy rapport they had and his stomach turned to lead. Jim wasn’t adverse to taking risks, they came as part of the job of a starship captain, evaluating every situation to see if the payback was worth the cost, but this was the one thing he could not risk. Jim was no stranger to loss, but Spock was the one person in the galaxy that he didn’t think he could survive losing.

So he had kept his mouth shut, bit back the speech he had been preparing, his great confession, and instead countered Spock’s move on the chess board. The jokes and light teasing still volleyed back and forth between them, but if Spock noticed that Jim’s smiles had become a little tighter, he did not comment.

He tried again on Doraf I. A semi-material being that was very angry they were on its planet to set up a colony had blasted them with some kind of toxic gas. Jim had rounded the corner after the attack to find the landing party all down and Spock leaning against a rock and gasping for breath. Jim had rushed to his side and grabbed his arm before he could think better of himself. Spock had looked up at him with wide eyes and said his name, and Jim almost told him then, almost told him how much he needed him, and not just as his First Officer, but Spock’s rich and impossibly dark eyes had closed before Jim could untangle the syllables from his tongue.

Another time Spock had rescued him from a group of cultists that were planning to chop up his arms and legs and cook him into a stew. Jim had passed out from the pain right as Spock had gotten there, but he woke up in the  _ Enterprise’s _ sickbay with the face of the man he loved most watching him from beside the bed. Jim had tried to tell him then, but his throat was raw from screaming, so he tried to reach out, but his hand was too numb. Spock had just stood there and looked at him with an unreadable expression save for the shine in his eyes, until McCoy had shooed him away so he could continue fussing over Jim. 

Or once Spock had looked at him on the bridge. Jim had just said something he’d thought was particularly clever and apparently Spock agreed from the coy curve of his lips and the shy lidding of his eyes, and Jim nearly said it right then, there in front of the entire bridge crew and recorded on the ship’s log for all of Starfleet to hear, but he didn’t. He sank his teeth into his lower lip to try and stop his smile, but he couldn’t.

And so that became his habit—it became so familiar it was almost like breathing. He and Spock would eat dinner together, play chess, stand beside each other on the bridge, Spock would save his life from a poisonous plant or come up with an equation to stop the ship from blowing up or just look at him with a stiff mouth but soft eyes, and Jim would respond with a smile and a quip but wouldn’t ever tell him that he loved him.

* * *

Jim was hanging out in the medlab, leaning against a table and watching Dr. McCoy run tests on the vaccine they were scheduled to drop off to Otar II in a few weeks. Bones had rattled off an explanation for exactly what was in it as soon as Jim came down, but Jim had forgotten most of what he’d said. It was all going to be in the report anyway, 

His mind was still up on the bridge. His active duty shift had ended over an hour ago (though the captain was never really “off-duty”), but he was still thinking about what had happened today. Nothing too crazy for the  _ Enterprise _ , a minor incident with a runaway cargo ship. Uhura had picked up on the freighter’s distress signal as their engines overloaded. The pilot had been close to panic, screaming desperately into the comm for help, but Jim had been able to calmly talk them through the engine repairs and stop the ship from being pulled into the nearby star’s gravity. The freighter’s crew had been so thankful that they had offered to escort the  _ Enterprise  _ back to their homeworld and host a month-long feat in their honor, and as tempting as a month of shore leave was, Jim had to politely decline and promise to visit sometime in the future.

The fate of the freighter crew wasn’t what tugged on Jim’s mind though. After they had closed hailing frequencies, Jim had sunk back into his chair with a sigh of relief. Spock had stood from his post at the science station and come to stand at Jim’s side. “Impressively handled, as always, Captain.”

Jim had smiled up at him. “All in a day’s work, Mr. Spock.”

Spock had tucked his hands behind his back. “I must admit, however, I was worried that after last week’s malfunction with the anti-matter chamber, you would forget which circuitry connected to the impulse drive. I am pleased to see that you have regained your mechanical knowledge.”

Jim's smile grew wider, well used to Spock’s teasing tone. “Do you really have so little faith in me?”

“If that were the case, I would not have advised you to accept that transmission.”

“So you were testing me, then?”

Spock had raised an eyebrow. “No, sir. I merely wished to express my relief that recent history did not repeat itself.”

Jim had bit back a laugh. “In that case, I’m glad to meet your baseline standards for my conduct.”

“On the contrary, you consistently exceed them.” Spock’s tone had still had that lilt that meant he was making a joke, but his eyes had held something warm and sincere that melted Jim’s heart like putty and twisted his tongue into a knot. As Spock returned to his station, Jim had thought that maybe then was when he should have finally said something about the feeling that kept surfacing each time Spock looked at him like that, but it had been too late.

“Jim?”

Jim was pulled out of his thoughts by Bones’ voice. He realized he was not actually on the bridge staring at the back of his first officer, but down in the medlab.

Bones was frowning at him, but that could easily be mistaken for his normal expression. “You feeling okay? You take your meds today?”

“Yes. You were sitting right next to me this morning.”

“I know, just you were spacing out for a long time there.” Bones set whatever he had been working on down on the table. “The Otar mission is gonna go fine. We’ll get this vaccine figured out in no time and the dropoff will go off without a hitch.”

Jim shook his head. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

Bones waited for Jim to say what was really bothering him. “Then what is it?”

Jim hesitated. Normally he told Bones everything, so his reluctance probably had his friend worried, like he was hiding something. It wasn’t that, just this felt different, somehow too personal, although there wasn’t much of anything that was “too personal” between them.

Bones was still staring at him, and he wasn't the type to let things drop, even when he probably should. So Jim sighed. “It’s about Spock.”

The doctor visibly bristled. “What’d he do now?”

“Nothing,” Jim said quickly. Maybe too quickly. He bit his lip. “Actually, that might be what the problem is.”

Bones raised a famous eyebrow. “You’re upset with him because of something he  _ didn’t _ do? He forget to submit a report or something?”

“You know he’s never missed a deadline in his life. What I mean is . . .”

“Jesus, Jim, would ya spit it out already?”

“There’s something I want to tell him, something I think I  _ need _ to tell him, but I don’t know if I should. I don’t know how he’ll react.”

Bones was quiet for a bit, and Jim started to feel like an idiot. He knew Bones couldn’t help if he didn’t tell him what was going on, but he also didn’t want to tell him for fear that he would would say he was crazy, or reading into things too much, or just repeat all the reasons Jim had come up with before for why what he wanted from Spock was a bad idea and could never work.

“This thing you wanna tell him, you think it’ll affect him that much?”

Jim stared at his boots. “I think it’ll change something between us, something that we won’t be able to put back. And I want it to be the good kind of change, but I’m so hung up on all the bad outcomes, and I feel like it all depends on how I say this thing and the right time that I say it, and I end up not saying it at all.”

He didn’t look up, but he already knew the look on Bones’ face from the sound of his sigh. 

“I think you already know what you need to do. You just need to say it. It might not be perfect, but you’ll continue to feel like shit until you get it off your chest. Besides, I’ve never known you to say the  _ wrong _ thing ever.” He gave Jim’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “You’ll figure it out.”

Jim smiled at him. “Thanks Bones. I think I knew that, I just needed to hear it.”

Bones grunted. “And that’s what you always come to me for.” He crossed his arms. “You gonna tell me what the big secret is, or nah? Somebody in his family die? That kinda news?”

“It’s nothing so tragic. At least it’s not supposed to be.” He felt a blush work its way up his face. “I just want him to know how much I . . . care about him.”

The eyebrow was back at full arch. “And you think he doesn’t know that because—?”

“Well, it’s a little more to it than that. Obviously he knows I respect him and appreciate him, but I also feel . . . more.”

A beat. “Yeah?”

“I mean,” Jim swallowed, “more than a friend.”

Another beat. “Yeah?”

Bones’ lack of reaction was starting to incite a panic in Jim. He had been right, this was a stupid idea. “Of course if you don’t think he feels the same and if I shouldn’t bother—”

“So this is the thing he doesn’t know? After everything else,  _ this _ is the thing you still haven’t told him.”

“Well, I guess it’s just never come up and I didn’t wanna push for something that wasn’t there and—” Jim froze. “Hang on, what do you mean,  _ everything else _ ?”

“I mean everything else that’s already happened between you guys. I just assumed that at some point the conversation had come up, but if it hasn’t, not like I’m judging you. Sometimes these things work like that, and it just seemed like it never bothered you before—”

“Bones. What the  _ hell _ are you talking about.”

The doctor rolled his eyes. “You know, all that time you spend together, when you’re in his quarters. . .”

“You mean the times when we play chess?”

“Sure, is that what you’re still calling it?”

“What we’re calling it? I don’t—oh. Oh my god.”

“I thought at this point you’d be past the euphemism, but—”

“So you think that every time we say we’re hanging out, we’re actually, we’re what? Sleeping together?”

“Well, not  _ every _ time.”

“But you thought that  _ some of the time _ ?”

Bones was staring at him hard, like he was scanning him with his x-ray vision. Normally Jim wasn’t ever fazed, because Bones already knew everything about him, but here, it was unnerving. “You mean you’ve never slept with him? At all?”

“Of course not! What the hell made you think that?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe the big dopey grin you get on your face when you talk to him, or maybe the way you’re always touching him, or maybe the way you stare at his ass on the bridge—”

“Okay, enough.” Jim pushed himself off the table and paced a few steps. “You really thought I’ve been sleeping with Spock? For how long?”

“Uh, like since I transferred?”

“ _ What? _ But that was . . . you actually think . . . that him and I . . .” 

“Jim, the whole ship thinks so. Probably all of Starfleet, too.” 

“The hell does Starfleet know? I know what they all say, they say I sleep with a lot of people, and that’s not true.”

“Well—”

“It’s not.” Jim stopped pacing to gesture dramatically. “In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I had sex, it was so long ago.”

Bones held up a finger. “Two weeks ago, Galador II, that woman with the antennae. Dinner conversation was getting a little tense and then she took you into that back room—”

“That doesn’t count. We needed the missile codes from her. Which I got, by the way.”

Bones ticked off another finger. “Ten days before that there was that guy at that jazz bar we visited on Qualor II. Looked at you all night like he wanted to take a bite out of you.”

“I definitely don’t remember that.”

“You don’t remember those teeth? I saw them all the way across the bar.”

“I—” Jim scrunched his face in thought, trying to pull the memory out. “I really don’t remember.”

Bones barked a laugh. “Yeah, well, you weren’t exactly near his face that night, were you?”

Jim’s jaw dropped. “How do you know  _ that _ ?”

“Then there was that dignitary you met on Zayra IV who you did a swell job of convincing to join the Federation. There was also Captain Rhone after we pulled her ship out of that asteroid field.” Bones was ticking off each name on his fingers.

“ _ Alright _ you’ve proven your point.”

“Really? Because I could keep going. And this is all in the last four months. There was also that human from the New Berlin colonies, and I’m pretty sure that Klingon commander—”

“I did  _ not _ actually sleep with him and you are well aware.” Jim crossed his arms with a huff. “And it’s not like I even wanted to sleep with half those people. Sometimes it’s just the easiest way to get them to talk.”

“Uh-huh, they say your negotiational skills are one of the eight wonders of the universe.”

“Bones—”

“I’m just saying, you have your reputation for a reason, Jim, and you’ve never been shy about using it before. People are gonna make some assumptions”

“Oh shut up. Besides, how  _ do  _ you even know all that? Do you keep a log of my entire sex life?” 

Bones gave him a look. “Jim, I’m your CMO. It is my job to keep track of the sexual activity of every crewmember on this ship.”

Jim blinked. “You’re shitting me.”

“Who do you think prevents you from contracting some kind of nasty alien STD? You never noticed the extra injections after one of your big nights?”

“Alright already.” Jim waved his hands and paced a few steps before stopping again. “But this time, you’re wrong. Spock’s a friend, he’s not a mark. He’s probably my best friend, actually.”

“Then why the hell are you here crying in my medbay?”

Jim scoffed. After a moment of pouting, Jim looked at his friend. “You of all people should know better, Bones. They used to say that kind of stuff about you and me back in the day.”

The famous eyebrow made a reappearance. “Yeah Jim, and it was all true.”

Jim opened his mouth to protest, but then shut it when he couldn’t think of anything to say. “Right.”

“At least until you cheated on me.”

“Hey, that is not fair. It’d be one thing if you said I had cheated on Ruth with you, but that’s not even true because she broke up with me before—”

“I’m not talking about Ruth, I’m talking about Gary Mitchell.”

Jim opened his mouth again, but again didn’t have a comeback. He resorted to a huff. “That was a long time ago, I thought we were past this?”

“I was, you were the one who brought it up.”

“I—” Jim groaned and raked a hand down his face. “So what are you saying, huh? That everybody already thinks I’m sleeping with Spock, so I should just do it?”

Bones fixed him with that piercing gaze. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Well—” Jim twisted his hands together. “I think so? I don’t know. I mean, yeah, I want to, but I really care about him, and I don’t wanna fuck it up.”

He saw the eyebrow hitch again. 

“Don’t.”

Finally sensing Jim’s distress over the matter, Bones crossed his arms and stepped closer. “Look, Jim, you’re worrying over nothing.”

It was Jim’s turn to give his friend an annoyed look. “You think I haven’t told myself that a million times by now? That’s not how it works.”

Bones rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I was trying to say and you know it. I don’t think this has to be as complicated as you’re making it out to be.”

“But how do I know what to say? You know Spock, he’s . . .” Jim searched for the right word to describe the situation, but they all came up lacking. It wasn’t that Spock wasn’t understanding—actually Jim felt that Spock understood him better than anyone else he’d ever met. He operated with a kind of intuition regarding Jim’s emotions that might have concerned Jim if he ever examined the feeling too closely, which he never did. In short, Spock was far from dense when it came to emotionality, but Jim still felt that he should handle the matter with extreme delicacy. “I just really don’t want to mess this up.”

“So you came to me. For relationship advice.” It wasn’t said like a question, but the disbelief was clear.

“You can drop the act, Bones, you know I trust you.”

“Damned if I know why,” he grumbled, but he paused before responding. “Just do what you do best.” Bones shrugged. “With things like this, you can’t follow your mind, you gotta follow your heart.”

“I didn’t know you dabbled in poetry, Bones.”

“Shut up, Jim. You’re the one asking me for advice.” He sighed. “My point is, stop thinking so hard, you gotta feel your way through this one. Spock may claim he doesn’t have emotions, but everyone knows that’s a load of horse shit. It just takes a little bit to get it out of him, but believe me, it’s worth it.” Bones put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Jim covered his hand with his own. “Okay. And thanks.”

“Anytime.” He squeezed his arm one last time before letting go and starting towards his office.

Jim sat there processing as Bones walked away. Feel his way through. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy. Then, he frowned.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘it’s worth it?’ Bones?  _ Bones _ .”

* * *

Jim found Uhura in the officer’s mess at around 0200 ship’s time. When he couldn’t sleep, he would roam the halls, enjoying how the traffic was considerably less than during ship’s day but enough people were still awake to remind him that business was running as usual. In his many nights of sleepless wandering, he had discovered that the communications lieutenant liked to frequent the mess with a PADD and a late night snack.

He replicated two bowls of vanilla ice cream and slid one across the table while he settled into the chair opposite her. “Good evening, Lieutenant.”

Uhura smiled when the bowl clinked against her PADD. “Good evening, Captain.” She offered up her plate of  _ maandazi  _ in return, an unspoken tradition they shared. 

Jim snatched one of the blobs of sweet fried dough and plopped it in his mouth. “Mmm, coconut this time.”

“They’re not quite the same as the ones my  _ bibi _ had taught me to make, but the replication comes pretty close.”

“You still haven’t shared with me  _ Bibi’s _ famous recipe.”

She laughed. “When we return to Earth, I’ll have her show you herself.”

He smiled back. “What are you working on tonight?”

“I’m trying to finish that translation patch for the Chrysalian ambassador we met two weeks ago, but xie was speaking in a different dialect than the one logged in the translator banks.” A divot had appeared between Uhura’s brows as she frowned at her screen. “The  _ Enterprise  _ has a complete log for the dialect spoken by the Chrysalian royals, but I believe the ambassador was speaking in the dialect of the rural communities. I’ve figured out that there’s a subject-verb reversal, but in the last sentence I can’t—” She stopped and sighed. “Sorry Captain, I don’t mean to bore you.”

“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked.” Jim helped himself to another  _ maandazi _ . “I’m sure you’ll crack the code. You always do.”

Her face softened into her smile. “Thank you, sir.” She pulled out her earpiece and set it on the table, then swirled her spoon in her ice cream. “What brings you here at this hour?”

He shrugged. “The usual. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Any particular reason?” Her brilliant brown eyes bored into him, reminding Jim eerily of the look Bones always fixed him with whenever he could tell Jim was hiding something. 

“No, just needed some company.”

Uhura hummed, his answer seeming to satisfy her for the moment. 

They finished a few more bites of their treats in compatible silence before Jim said, “Speaking of that ambassador, do you remember that feast they hosted for us.”

Uhura’s eyes widened. “Oh yes. That bantha roast was absolutely delicious.”

“And that dish of the aquatic creature? The one with the spice that tasted a lot like cinnamon?”

“Fantastic. A privilege to witness.”

“After eating synthesized food for so many months, I almost started weeping at the taste of something genuine.”

“Me, too.” Uhura licked her lips at the memory. “Nothing beats the real thing.”

“I felt bad for Spock though. Everything was meat, so there wasn’t anything for him to enjoy.”

“He was very polite in his refusal.” She leaned over the table. “But did you see his expression when the Chrysalian general accused him of ‘dietary weakness.’”

Jim laughed. “Like someone had pinched him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so offended in my life.”

Uhura laughed, too. “I don’t know about that. There was the time that Talarian delegate told him he had the most adorable expressions, and Spock glared at him so hard I thought he might have swapped bodies with Dr. McCoy.”

“The Talarian delegate told him that? I don’t remember that one.”

“That’s probably because you were being held hostage in a mine on the far side of the planet,” Uhura reminded him with a pat on the wrist.

“Huh,” Jim said, the memory coming back to him. “Wish I’d been there to see it.” He smiled to himself, imagining the workout Spock’s eyebrows must have gone through. Perhaps he’d even pouted a bit, his lips turned down in frown that really was quite adorable—

“I can’t imagine the mines were  _ that  _ pleasant.” 

Jim yanked himself from his thoughts in time to see Uhura’s eyebrows jumping through their own exercise routine. “What?”

The sides of her mouth curled wickedly. “I said, I don’t think that wistful sigh was for your memories of lying unconscious in the dirt, so something else must be on your mind. Maybe a certain handsome science officer?”

Jim realized he had been resting with his chin in his hands. He straightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant.”

Uhura hummed. “My mistake then.” She took a large spoonful of ice cream and pointedly deposited it into her mouth. That omniscient gleam had returned to her eyes.

She didn’t say anything else after that, instead continued eating her ice cream as if Jim wasn’t even in the room. The silence stretched on until Jim couldn’t bear it anymore.

“It’s really not like that.”

“I never said it was. Actually, you brought up the subject.”

Jim closed his mouth once he realized she was right. Dammit, why had he started talking about Spock at all? He couldn’t help how much the man occupied his thoughts.

He sighed. Little use holding back now when he’d already said so much.

“I just—” He clasped his hands on the table and twisted his thumbs together. “This is going to sound stupid, but I worry sometimes. I mean, he’s a very good friend, and I think I know him better than anyone, well except maybe you, which is why I want to ask, that is. Well,” he was glad the mess was empty so no one could hear the tumbleweed of words spilling from his mouth, “I’m just afraid I might be reading into things too much sometimes, y’know? What if our friendship is more important to me than it is to him, and what if—”

“What if he doesn’t  _ like-like _ you back?” Uhura’s eyebrows were doing the wave again.

Jim groaned and lowered his forehead to rest against his hands. “Nyota, I said that to you when I was drunk. You promised never to bring that up again.”

“I’m sorry, Jim, it was just so funny.” She reached out and rubbed his shoulder. “Besides, you were starting to get that kicked puppy look in your eyes again, and we can’t have the captain acting all mopey.”

Jim sat up and massaged his fingers into his eyes. “I don’t know. Some days it’s fine, and then some days I look at him and feel like I’m about to break.”

Uhura whistled. “You got it bad.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” He put his hands down and looked at her. “Any advice?”

She shrugged. “Have you ever told him how you feel?”

“Sort of?” He sighed. “No, not really. I’ve told him what a great friend he is and how much I appreciate him, but I never told him all of the . . . other stuff.”

“Start with that.” She tilted her head at him. “As a literal communications expert, I say it’s always best to talk things out. It might be an uncomfortable conversation, but I’m sure the best will come out of the other side.”

Jim laughed dryly. “Funny, Bones told me almost the same thing.”

“Then he’s a smart man.” Uhura sat back and licked the remaining drops from her spoon with a smile.

Jim returned the smile. “Hey, do you remember when you transferred to the  _ Enterprise _ ? Did you think me and Spock were sleeping together back then?”

Uhura paused with a  _ maandazi _ halfway to her mouth. “Do you mean you weren’t?”

Jim’s forehead slammed into the table.

* * *

Jim stopped by Spock’s quarters late one evening. He had just been about to retire, but he remembered he still had to ask his First Officer about finalizing the Korial IV landing party for tomorrow. There had been a time where Jim had thought it inappropriate to visit his staff’s personal spaces after the ship’s day was over, but that regulation had become looser and looser the longer they stayed in space together.

He still made sure to buzz at the door and wait for Spock’s request to come in. If it were Bones or Scotty, he wouldn’t have bothered, but he knew Spock liked his privacy, and despite how close they were now, he wanted to respect that.

When he entered, he saw his First Officer resting on his meditation mat with his eyes closed and his hands folded in his lap.

Jim paused just inside the doorway. “I can come back later if this is a bad time.”

“Any later and it would be the middle of the night.” Spock opened his eyes. The look he gave Jim wasn’t exactly a smile, but it was enough of a relaxation from his usual rigid expression that it conveyed the fondness in his tone.

Jim smiled back. His stomach got the same bubbly feeling as every time Spock looked at him like that, but he swallowed it. “I wanted to ask if you had any trouble selecting the landing party for tomorrow.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “As I have just submitted my recommendations to your PADD, the only trouble possible is from something you have determined.”

“Of course you have.” Jim rubbed the back of his neck, then, not wanting to leave yet, settled himself into the chair opposite Spock’s desk. “What do you know about Korial IV?”

Spock watched him with dark eyes. He rose smoothly from the floor and crossed the room to join Jim at the desk, resuming his hands into their folded position. “Korial IV is a class M planet. Atmosphere is relatively 68.22% nitrogen, 27.8% oxygen, and 3.98% other gases such as carbon dioxide, neon, and helium. Of course, this approximation removes the quantities of water vapor, which can vary by region from 2.75 to 6.81 percent. Much of the planet’s surface is covered in lush forests and an expanse of colorful fauna and animal life. Although the Karialans have not yet developed warp drive, they have explored all other class M planets in their system. They have a rich culture that emphasizes discovery, creativity, and artistic expression.” 

“Yes, I’ve heard about their art festivals. If I’m not mistaken, I believe there’ll be one going on while we’re visiting. I trust you’ve recommended Yeoman Salinas for the landing party? With her background in cross-cultural art history, I’m sure she’d be interested in the displays.”

Spock inclined his head. “Naturally, Captain, which you would know if you had read my recommendation report.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, Mr. Spock.” Jim’s returning grin indicated that he knew he was being teased. He loved that Spock was comfortable enough with him to rib him. Despite the use of their formal titles, it never felt like they were pulling rank with each other. Jim also loved listening to Spock’s smooth, soothing voice as he described planetary statistics, and he loved—

He shook himself out of his thoughts before they could run away from him. It was all too easy with Spock looking at him like that.

Still, the feeling had already started to swell within him, and he had a hard time stamping it down. Maybe he should finally say something. The thought twisted his insides. How could it be so simple? It all seemed too daunting, too delicate.

He thought about how much the man on the other side of the desk meant to him. He thought about the times Spock had saved his life, both in the physical and more metaphorical sense. He thought about the quiet moments they had shared, many like this, where the fate of the galaxy wasn’t resting on their shoulders and they were instead just two friends who shared a connection. He had spent months thinking about this connection and the “right time” had never come, maybe he should just say it now. Yes, he could do this. Just tell him how he felt—

“Did you know that the whole ship thinks we’re sleeping together?”

Mortification bulleted into Jim’s gut. That wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. He’d wanted to express something real and sincere, but apparently he was too distracted by what the rest of the crew thought of him. He wished the transporter beam would suddenly activate and beam him to another planet far, far away.

Spock’s lips only quirked in amusement, though. “While I do not usually engage in the ship’s gossip, those particular rumors have been difficult to miss.”

Jim’s jaw dropped. “You  _ did  _ know?”

Spock’s smirk fell. “Others may think me oblivious to normal human interaction, but I had thought that after all this time you would know me better, Captain.”

Here the use of his title felt like a sting. “No, that’s not what I was insinuating. I was just a little surprised, I mean—” Great, here he was trying to tell his friend how much he cared about him and he’d ended up insulting him. “Just that, I was never aware that those kinds of rumors were going around, and I thought you might be concerned about how your reputation was affected.”

Now Spock was full-on frowning at him, and not just his usual stoic face, more like a borderline scowl. “I am not so vain as to obsess over what others think of me. Their opinion of me is their business alone, as I can only be true to myself.”

“No no no, I didn’t mean that.” Jim waved his hands to try and clear away the confusion. The situation was quickly spiraling, and not in the sort of direction he had been hoping. “What I’m trying to say is, well, I know  _ I _ have a certain reputation when it comes to . . . when it comes to . . .” God, Jim had never had a problem talking about sex to anyone before, but now that he was trying to explain himself to Spock, he couldn’t bring himself to say the word  _ lovers _ , “that kind of thing, and I didn’t want you to confuse that with what we have going on.”

Spock had gone very quiet. He wasn’t looking at Jim anymore, but was instead staring at his hands in his lap. “I see.”

A spike of ice stabbed into Jim’s chest. Something was very wrong. Was it something he said? He shut his mouth.

After a moment of silence that felt like a fifty kilogram weight sitting on Jim’s chest, Spock stood. “Perhaps it is best if we both retire for the night. With the visit to Korial IV tomorrow, it would be unwise of you not to get your regulated eight hours of rest.”

“Wait, Spock.” Jim stood, too. He had to fix this, whatever this was. He didn’t like the thought of going to bed with Spock mad at him over something he didn’t know about.  _ It’s better to talk things out. The best will come out the other side. _

“Spock, I—” Jim started, but like so many times before, the words didn’t come to him. He worked his mouth open uselessly as his entire vocabulary abandoned him.

Spock just stood there and watched him with his exquisitely dark eyes. Jim loved how Spock’s eyes reminded him of black holes, full of unknowable depth, and whenever he looked at him like this, Jim always failed to not get sucked into his gaze.

Spock waited, but Jim didn’t know what to do. How could he just out and  _ say  _ it? The depth of what he felt, words wouldn’t be enough, and he wanted Spock to understand, suddenly  _ needed _ him to understand.

_ Stop thinking so hard, you gotta feel your way through _ . 

Jim stepped forward and closed the gap between them. That urge for Spock to understand was swelling in his chest, clouding into his head. Without being fully aware of it, he reached out and put his hand on Spock’s shoulder.

Spock stilled, as if someone had hit pause on a holovid.

Jim froze, too. They had talked about it once before, in this room, where Spock had said it was okay for Jim to touch him, even welcomed it, and Jim had been drowning so deep in love that afterwards he was afraid the whole exchange had been a dream rather than reality. What if Spock had only said what he thought Jim wanted to hear? Would he tell him if he ever changed his mind? How much was overstepping his boundaries? Jim had been too terrified to bring up the subject again, so he resorted to keeping his hands off. If he didn’t touch Spock at all, they wouldn’t have to talk about it if it got too complicated.

He had just broken his own rule. 

He withdrew his hand, an apology half out of his mouth before Spock stopped him by grabbing his hand. Not his wrist, his hand, clasping it firmly in his own.

“Jim,” Spock said, and that was all he needed to say.

Through the direct contact of their palms, something clicked, like two magnets with their repulsing ends facing each other had suddenly spun and snapped together. Jim’s doubt from moments before evaporated, and a new feeling raced through his veins, setting every nerve alight in a feeling like an electric shock.

Spock also started, but he didn’t let go. His grip on Jim’s hand tightened, and that, somehow, was the sign Jim had been looking for. All his half-written speeches fled from his brain because he didn’t need them. Spock already knew. 

And Jim finally recognized what his gut had been telling him all along—the answer to his unasked question. It had been staring him in the face all this time, bright as starlight right there in Spock’s eyes.

Slowly, Jim raised their joined hands and pressed his lips to the side of Spock’s hand, just under the knuckle joint of his pinkie.

Spock blinked, and something jolted up Jim’s arm and settled into the base of his brain. It was soothing and exhilarating at the same time, leaving him feeling more content than he ever had but still thrumming with this desire, this need for more.

Jim moved closer, but Spock ducked his head, and Jim felt uncertainty shoot up his arm and up his spinal cord and into the center of his brain that had begun to pulse, like something swimming just underneath his temples.

Jim leaned forward anyway, rose onto his tiptoes, and kissed the crown of Spock’s head, just a soft touch of his lips to his hair, but it was enough for Spock to feel because he looked up. His eyes were wide, and so impossibly dark Jim couldn’t take it. He looked into the face of the man he loved more than anyone in the galaxy and knew he was being sucked in, his very atoms imploding like a collapsing star, but he also knew he couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to, and he certainly did not.

Jim curled a hand around the back of Spock’s neck and placed a kiss right on the inner corner of one of his immaculate eyebrows. Spock’s eyes closed, and a new feeling trembled up Jim’s arm, one that felt darker and tasted of honey. Jim pressed his lips against Spock’s temple and the feeling increased, the sweetness more strongly washing over his tongue. 

He kissed just below Spock’s eye, Spock’s long eyelashes fluttering against his upper lip, and the feeling shifted to something weightless, something light as a butterfly climbing towards the infinite sky. He moved to kiss the tip of Spock’s nose, then angled his head and kissed his chin. Spock’s breath hitched, ghosting over Jim’s lips and sending pleasant shivers up his spine.

Jim pressed his forehead into the side of Spock’s neck, smiling when he felt something buzz in the contact of their skin. He’d never felt so exhilarated in his life. He felt like he was six years old again and had just unwrapped his first telescope for Christmas; he felt like he was fourteen and Jessica Palmer had just asked him to dance; he felt like he was seventeen and had just received his admission letter to Starfleet Academy, or thirty-two and had just stepped onboard a starship for the first time as her captain. Yet the happiness he’d felt in these past memories seemed a dull reflection to the full, rich feeling consuming him now.

He leaned in further and kissed below Spock’s collarbone. Then he slid his arms up Spock’s shoulders and started to curl them around his back.

Spock grabbed his hand again. His fingers trembled slightly when they curled around his wrist.

Jim looked up into his face. Spock was struggling to keep his composure. His face looked controlled enough, but his eyes looked wild, iridescent colors swirling in his dark irises. Spock took another shuddering breath. His mouth worked, trying to form words.

Jim raised their hands to his mouth, this time planting a kiss right on the inside of Spock’s wrist.

Something exploded in Spock, his eyes blew up wider than Jim had ever seen, and he surged forward, crashing his mouth against Jim’s. The force of him knocked Jim backwards until his back was flattened against the wall and Spock was pressed into him. 

Jim threaded his hands into Spock’s hair, caressing up the sides of his head and twisting the silky strands between his fingers. Jim had been with many passionate lovers, but he didn’t think he’d ever been kissed like this before. They were already touching completely—chests, stomachs, thighs—but it wasn’t enough, Jim wanted more. He wanted Spock to swallow him, to absorb him until he wasn’t sure where one of them began and the other ended. 

Jim shifted his legs wider, and Spock planted a knee right in the opening.

While Jim considered himself pretty open about his sex life (maybe a little too open, if Bones had learned to read him so damn well), Spock was pretty tight-lipped about his to the point where Jim had wondered if he was even interested in sex, not that it would have changed anything if he wasn’t. But the way Spock forced Jim’s mouth open, pressing deeper and putting pressure on  _ just _ the right spots, made it clear that Spock knew exactly what he was doing.

After what felt like only a moment, Spock pulled away. Jim was a little embarrassed by the whine that escaped his lips, but he still didn’t stop it. Spock touched his forehead to Jim’s, both of them breathing hard, Jim’s hands still fisted into his hair. 

Jim felt like he was floating, a bit like he was drunk, and warm from his ears to his toes. His lower lip throbbed from where Spock had bitten down, and his head pulsed with an intense affection like he’d never felt before.

A wave of something dark and slick bled into his euphoria.

“Jim, I—”

Somehow, Jim knew exactly what Spock was going to say before he said it, and if he should have found that a little odd, he was too high on pleasure to analyze it.

“Why’d you stop?” he asked before Spock could finish his sentence, before he allowed them to be overcome with doubts that Jim had already lived with for too long.

“I—” Spock moved his head away from Jim’s “—apologize.”

That made Jim open his eyes. “For what?”

Spock eyes darted down to his mouth then to the side. “For not being in better control of myself.”

Something in Jim ached at that, at the torn look on Spock’s face, at the way Spock’s hands tremored from where they held onto Jim’s arms. Jim let go of his hair and moved his hands to cup the sides of his face. “You don’t have to be.”

When Spock at last met his eyes again, Jim lost all sense of gravity. It really only took one look to rewrite his entire world, restructure his existence atom by atom until he was something new. He was sure he was still himself, but somehow better, improved, like a piece had been missing in him and he was now whole. 

Perhaps he was just imagining it, drunk on the happiness swelling inside him, but he could have sworn Spock’s skin thrummed under his fingertips. He was struck speechless. The funniest thing was he no longer felt he had to say something, like there was one perfect sentence he needed to construct to convey his feelings. Everything that couldn’t be said with words could be said with a touch. 

Jim leaned in to kiss him again. His nerves still sang with sensation and that itch had returned, the desperate desire for more more more, but he held back. He kissed him softly, setting a pace much slower than their first frenzied collision but with no less intent.

Spock responded by pushing into him, so much  _ pressure _ everywhere, and Jim smiled around his mouth. His hands idly stroked the sides of Spock’s face, pleasure enveloping his hands like the warm, wool mittens he worse during Iowa winters.

Jim broke their kiss with great reluctance. “Well,” he slid his hands from Spock’s face to rest over his chest, “I should probably go.”

“Does that mean,” Spock’s voice was a rumble beneath his hands, “you won’t be staying the night?”

Jim pulled back in surprise, but when he saw the sincerity on the other man’s face, he broke into the widest grin of his life. “I suppose it is quite late already. Besides, what would the crew say if they caught me sneaking out of your quarters at this hour?”

“I suspect,” Spock’s hands slid lower to his waistline, “they would say nothing,” he leaned in closer, “which hasn’t already been said.” He punctuated his prediction with a soft kiss just under Jim’s jawline.

Jim’s knees began to buckle as Spock kissed an agonizingly slow line up to his ear. “You know, I find I no longer have any objections to that.”

Spock pressed his mouth right against Jim’s ear. “Good. Neither do I.”

Before Jim could return the banter, Spock was kissing him again. Neither of them said anything for a long time after that. They found they didn’t need to.

**Author's Note:**

> And the series has come full circle! Thanks to everyone for reading, and a special thank you to everyone who gave kudos and comments along the way! I love reading your responses and your support means a lot!
> 
> If you liked this, come check me out on [tumblr](https://jamestfortitsoutkirk.tumblr.com/) and send me a message! Tell me about anything, your favorite part in the fic, your favorite TOS episode, send a picture of your cat, you can even just say "Star Trek" and I'll be like "yeah."


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